


Intertwined

by tomfoolery14



Series: Malec Appreciation Week [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alliance Rune, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomfoolery14/pseuds/tomfoolery14
Summary: Magnus and Alec use the Alliance Rune for the first time.





	Intertwined

**Author's Note:**

> My last entry for Malec Appreciation Week. The theme is a first time!
> 
> I haven't read the books for the details of the alliance rune, but I did research and did my best!

“Clary, you’re sure this is safe? A newly created rune is already unstable; one that combines shadowhunter and downworlder abilities could be catastrophic. Mutations would be the least damaging side effect if the bond isn’t properly created.” Magnus had his arms crossed over his chest, thumb dragging over his lower lip.

“Magnus, Ithuriel is the one who sends me these runes,” Clary argued, stele gripped in one hand. “I’m not just making them up myself.”

“Magnus is right, Clary,” Jace interjected. “We’ve never done anything like this before with one of your runes. How do we know it’s safe?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Alec snorted, looking over at Magnus. “Downworlders can’t bear runes, Clary. Even a rune created by an angel to gift to you isn’t exempt from that. A rune is a rune.”

“I already tested it myself.”

The group was stunned into silence.

“Wait, you really thought I would put Magnus and Alec in danger by trying it out on them first? That’s insulting.”

Isabelle laughed, her eyes alight with glee.

“Simon and I… We tried it as soon as Ithuriel showed it to me. It worked.”

Magnus sighed, scratching absently at his stubble. “Supposing I say yes… Is it permanent?”

“No, it’ll have to be redrawn each time you need it activated.”

Magnus was silent for a moment before dropping his arms to his side. “All right.”

Alec looked at him with concern. “Magnus, are you sure?”

“If I die, I leave Chairman Meow in your custody. Love him as if he were your own.”

Jace rolled his eyes and shrugged off his jacket. “Let’s do this, you two.”

Alec pulled his stele from his back pocket and took the paper Clary offered him. It was a detailed drawing of the alliance rune. He carefully applied it to his skin, glancing up sporadically to check his lines. Once it was finished, he turned to Magnus, stele poised. “Where do you want it?”

“Oh, Alexander,” Magnus purred, shifting his weight forward to get closer to Alec. “I love it when you talk dirty.” Nonetheless, he unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve and pushed it up to his elbow, offering skin to Alec. The first touch of the adamas left a dull burning sensation behind. Magnus had never taken the time to wonder what applying runes felt like. He remained perfectly still until Alec straightened up and released his wrist.

“How do you feel?” Isabelle asked tentatively, touching Alec’s arm.

“I feel…something. I’m not sure what it is.”

Magnus nodded, flexing his hands. He felt abuzz with a different kind of power than magic gave him. It was potential power, ambiguous.

He gathered magic in his hand, allowing it to crackle familiarly, then let it dissolve. Alec made a fist with his right hand, looking down at it with curiosity.

Jace, Isabelle, and Clary went to the panel that controlled the simulation holograms designed for combat training and began to construct a mockup.

Alec activated his strength, speed, agility, stamina, and flexibility runes, immediately causing sparks to fire in Magnus’ bloodstream. Both men felt an oversaturation of energy simmering just beneath their skin. This new tether was vastly intimate; one they could sense at the atomic level.

With an arrow nocked in his bow, Alec nodded once at Magnus.

Isabelle launched the simulation at their signal, the lights going out all at once.

Magnus took one step back, the dark crimson that licked at his fingertips the only light available.

All of a sudden, a loud screech ripped through the silence. Their location slowly materialized around them—an empty warehouse, leaving them open and exposed. There was a second floor above them, but no means of getting there. A Shax demon materialized on the railing, emitting another piercing shriek. Alec lifted his bow, and the arrow point glowed with Magnus’ magic. Magic that would ensure it found its mark.

When Alec fired it, it was a silent crimson streak in the darkness that vaporized the demon on contact.

Magnus started to stray from Alec’s side, taking in their surroundings. “No doors or windows,” he remarked.

Another Shax demon appeared to his left, and Magnus could sense it. He spun gracefully and flung a pulse of magic from his palm that incinerated what it came into contact with. He felt a more centralized focus in his movements, his magic palpably more fixated on its target.

All at once, an onslaught of many different types of demons descended on them, throwing the warehouse into chaos.

Alec’s arrows were exponentially more destructive when they met their mark. Each demon that found itself at the end of the glowing arrow’s point didn’t just dissolve into dark orange sparks but instead was engulfed in red flames that swallowed it whole.

Magnus found each attribute Alec had strengthened with a rune was now honed with extreme precision. While he had always been quick, resilient, and enduring in a fight, he was now hypersensitive to each capability. His magic yielded to his will more directly, and using it generated a much shorter refractory period.  It was common for him to burn himself out, but with Alec’s strength now mingling with his own, he felt unstoppable.

“Magnus, drop!”

Without a second thought, Magnus sunk to his right knee as an arrow whizzed through the air and impaled its recipient.

While Alec nocked another arrow, Magnus sent a spiral of burning red just past Alec’s shoulder to obliterate a small pack of Ravenor demons creeping up behind him.

Alec pulled Magnus to his feet, then pressed something into his hand. A seraph blade. The second it made contact with Magnus’ skin, it materialized, glowing bright red. The light bathed both men in crimson, and for a moment they just looked at each other.

There was something disarmingly intimate about being able to feel the strength and power of the other intertwined with their own. Sharing strength with Magnus was the only time Alec had felt anything like this before. It was a strangely pleasant sensation of warmth spreading through his entire body, reaching out for someone else.

With his bow steady in his hands, Alec returned to picking off the demons that were hanging back, hiding in the shadows of the second floor railings.

Magnus, now armed with the seraph blade, was cutting through the demons on the ground. He usually either fought with his magic or by hand. While he had practice with some weaponry, it never responded to him the way he was accustomed to by using his own body. This blade, with the combined power of a shadowhunter and a warlock, however, responded to even the smallest movements he made.

Raw, unbridled power that was all-consuming charged the air around them.

A shower of fire and sparks rained down around Alec and Magnus, and then the holographic setting flickered once before dissolving.

**Author's Note:**

> any prompts or thoughts you have you can send to me at champagnemagnus.tumblr.com.


End file.
